Do babies go to Hell?

Too many Christians have the ridiculous idea that some of them do. But if you read the bible for yourself you will be able to clearly see that to believe such a notion is beyond comprehension.

If you look at our title scripture you will notice that Paul says that ‘all died.’ (Paul is not talking about physical death, but spiritual death. ) Let me ask you this question: what does it mean to die? The simple answer is that it means to cease to be alive. So then, to ‘die’ implies that you where once alive, does it not? Of course it does. You can’t die if you were never alive.

Now remember that I am speaking spiritually. The word ‘death’ means to be ‘separated.’ When you die physically your body and spirit become separated from each other. Without your spirit your body is dead (James 2:26). Now your spirit doesn’t cease to exist. No, it leaves this world for the next. Even so, spiritual death is the separation of your spirit from God. Your sin separates you from God and you become spiritually dead. If you continue this state of spiritual death and never accept Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins then when you die physically your spirit will depart to Hell. But if you accept the sacrifice that Jesus made, then your sins are taken away. Therefore, because there is no more sin to separate you from God, you are now spiritually alive. When you die physically your spirit will depart for Heaven.

Before we go any further let’s define sin. The bible says that sin is lawlessness (1Jn 3:4). ‘Lawlessness’ means to live or to act with disregard to the law. For example if you run a stop light, you have acted with disregard to the law. You have sinned against the government who established that law. According to the bible, if you murder someone for example, then you have committed sin, you broke God’s law, you committed lawlessness, that is, you acted with disregard for the law.

We are all born with a disposition to sin. We have inherited a corrupt flesh from our father Adam and therefore sin comes easily to us. As a matter of fact, we start sinning from childhood. Children tend to lie and take and hit and act selfishly and so on. BUT, God does not hold that sin against them. Why? Because they are not old enough to understand what sin is. Look what Paul says:

sin is not imputed when there is no law. Rom 5:13.

That means that God doesn’t count your sin against you when you genuinely are unaware of His law. God knows all hearts and He knows when you finally come to the age where you fully understand what sin is. Once you understand, then you are held responsible for your sin.

This is practiced somewhat today in our judicial system. If you commit a crime in your youth the punishment from the government is never as severe as when you are an adult. They are, in a way, practicing this same principal that God practices. The same is true with mentally ill people. A mentally ill person will usually get a much lesser punishment for a crime then a person of sound mind (I know that this is abused in the U.S. judicial system, but God really knows if someone is mentally ill or not).

Paul attests to all this when he says:

I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Rom 7:9

So you can see that Paul was spiritually alive at one point in his life until ‘the commandment came.’ This verse most likely refers to the point in his life when he finally become old enough to understand the law of God. If Paul would have physically died before ‘the commandment came’ he would have died in a state of spiritual life.

Thus, the biblical reason that babies do not go to hell. It’s foolish to think that you have to baptize a baby for him or her to go to heaven. That would mean that babies that die on the way to church would be going to hell. HOW STUPID! No, God does not count sin against those that cannot understand His law.

But even so, the death of a child is very tragic. God’s plan is for us to live a full life here first, and then depart to Glory. But because of this fallen world and because of a fierce enemy, sometimes tragedy strikes. However, we can be assured that any child who dies in his innocence will meet us in our heavenly country when our life on earth is complete.

So rest assured that if you have ever had a child that passed away that God is caring for him or her. This should be even more of a motivation for you to finish your course here on earth so that you can be sure to be with them when your time is come.

Published by Hal Chaffee

3 comments

Another subject that just really bothers me is when babies die, either before or after birth and people try to say that God took them. Although we know that they are with God and that is very comforting. We will be with them in eternity. God is not out to steal our babies. He dosen’t give us a gift, just to take it away. Sometimes it is just because something is wrong. And sometimes it is because satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy! Jesus comes to give life and life more abundant! John 10:10

I have three sisters who all miscarried their first babies. My grandmother told one of them that God just needed another rose in His garden. What? Was the baby gonna turn into a rose? How crazy! And my sister says that this comforted her. What craziness!

My other grandmother told me, when I was pregnant with my first child, that because my sisters had all lost their first babies I would probably lose mine. Now wasn’t that nice!

So people need to know the Word, so that they can stand on it. I surely didn’t know it when my grandmothers were speaking such terrible things, and they didn’t really mean any harm. I guess they just didn’t know any better themselves. I praise God for great men and women of God who teach the whole Word of God! Its not just about the sweet by and by. We need to know the truth of God’s word so that we can stand on it NOW!

So to sum it up, we are spiritually alive until we understand right from wrong. Once we comit that wrong (sin), we die spiriually and thus it is then necessary to accept a savior. One who has paid the penalty for the offense of man and who can regenerate that dead nature back into the nature of God.

Yeah, I would say that that is correct. It’s a really interesting subject. I was reading in 1 Peter 3:19 how Jesus went and preached to the ‘spirits in prison, who were formally disobedient, when the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah..’ This goes along with Romans 7:13-14 “For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of Adam (who directly disobeyed Gods command – my note)”

So it seems (and I could be completely wrong), that sin was in the world, but not held against people in a spiritual sense until Moses (and then maybe only for the Jews. see Acts 17:30). Physical death still reigned (since sin by nature leads to death), but spiritually their sin was overlooked. Then it seems, many years later, that Christ comes and actually preaches the gospel to these people who were held in some kind of ‘prison.’ And then ‘He ascended on high, He lead captivity captive, and gave gifts to men’ Eph 4:8. Does this mean that He brought those that He preached to to heaven? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m not 100% sure, but it sure sounds like it is saying that.